Ft. Hood Massacre: Mass murderer vs. Terrorist vs. “American Muslim”

The shocking, bloody, ambush of unarmed soldiers and innocent civilians, allegedly by Army Major Nidal Hasan is yet another horrific chapter in our nation’s history of mass murders. But it is how that chapter is currently being written by the media that has immense implications for who and what we are as a nation.

Once the name of the protagonist was established, the blogs lit up and the talking heads immediately turned to the “terrorist” word. Anderson Cooper repeatedly referred to Hasan as an “American Muslim.” I somehow don’t see Cooper referring to the Columbine killers, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris as “American Protestants.” Yet, front and center, the media began their speculation on whether Hasan was a “recent convert” to Islam, what websites he visited, and whether “outside influences” — code words for Imams and terrorist recruiters — had compelled him to walk onto the base and begin his shooting rampage. Indeed, the media was playing {and replaying} up the fact that he was shown wearing “traditional” Arab garb earlier in the day as he bought some coffee, although other footage from the day before showed him wearing hospital scrubs — which thus far has never made the endless loop on CNN.

When we — and by that I mean the American people and the press — were previously exposed to reports of mass killings by a single individual or a small group of individuals, the individuals responsible were denominated as mass murderers. Their intent may have included a desire to terrorize their potential victims, to unsettle and create upheaval in communities, but they were still referred to as garden-variety mass murderers. Charles Whitman, the psychopath who killed 14 and wounded 32 from the tower in the University of Texas in 1966, was a mass murderer. George Jo Kennard, who drove his pickup into a Luby’s restaurant in Killeen, Texas {sadly and ironically, close to Ford Hood} and killed 23 was a mass murderer. Most recently, we were glued to the television sets by the tragedy at Virginia Tech, where Seung-Hui Cho gunned down 32 students and faculty. He, too, was pronounced a mass murderer.

But the implied presumption on Hasan appears to be terrorist unless proven otherwise. And that is a singular injustice to the American Islamic community. It forces relatives of Hasan to immediately proclaim their loyalty as Americans in the same paragraph as expressing sorrow for the victims. It sets off alarm bells in many of my Arab American friends — who may or may not be Muslim — as they prepare to go to work tomorrow, and many are already worried about how to deal with the inevitable water-cooler speculation about Hasan’s religious beliefs and their role, if any, in the massacre.

What drives these killers is complicated and, in many cases, never known because they often die in their orgy of violence. Manson was insane, but survived. Jeffrey Dahmer, the American cannibal, survived to arrest, but was later murdered in prison. Both remain enigmas to this day. Hasan, somehow, survived. Perhaps he may provide us answers. Or, if he has had a complete psychotic break, whatever he says may be delusions or babbling rationalizations.

Whatever the conclusion of the investigation, the media needs a big helping of responsibility force-fed down its throat. It may be that Hasan was part of some terrorist plot aimed at a U.S. military base. Perhaps Hasan was recruited into Al Qeda. But at this point we are far from knowing anything more than the stark, tragic facts. Before we use the loaded “terrorist” word; before we start labelling him as an “American muslim;” before we, however unintentionally, set off a wave of paranoia and fear in Arab American and American Islamic communities, we need to first find out what drove this lone gunman, like so many before him, to go to his place of work and create his own personal killing field.